Information dropping infrequently from my brain into a vast ocean of network packets.

Saturday, April 16, 2016

big talk

Gavin is headed leisurely down the sidewalk. He spots someone wearing a kitschy sandwich board that reads simply "THINK BIG". As he curses his own sense of curiosity, he approaches. Before he can speak, the wearer shakes his hand and strikes up the conversation. (After a while, he takes off the sandwich board and they find somewhere nearby to sit.)Biggs: Glad you stopped to chat. Call me Biggs. And you?Gavin: Gavin. So, what is it your sign wants me to think big about?Biggs: Everything. Bigness is what you should focus your attention on. What do you believe is the central truth of existence?Gavin: Do you mean religiously, or...Biggs: Yes, but "religion" is nothing except a label. Language is a symbol, and symbols are inadequate substitutes for the reality of bigness. Bigness cannot be labeled.Gavin: The bigness of what?Biggs: Bigness itself. Bigness surrounding and joining all things. No one thing is big enough to be bigness all on its own.Gavin: Isn't bigness a description, though? How can you believe in bigness without being more specific about what the bigness is describing?Biggs: Bigness isn't shown through one specific thing. If all things vanished or shrunk, bigness would still be bigness. Bigness is eternal and needs nothing else. Bigness forms new things from out of its excess supply, like a fountain spewing droplets.Gavin: Um, how can I tell if I'm believing in the real bigness or not?Biggs: Belief is less important than connecting with bigness. Feel it. Don't fight it.Gavin: Then how can I tell if I'm feeling it or fighting it?Biggs: Like I said, the sensation of bigness is bigger than I can explain. You feel it when you're opening your arms to embrace the grandest cosmic wholeness of the universe. You fight it when you're being selfish and closed off. You experience a sliver of bigness when you realize you're like a fish in a wide ocean.Gavin: Which substances would you personally recommend taking for enhancing that?Biggs: Indulge or don't. The bigness is present before and after whether you do or not.Gavin: Where did the bigness come from? Will it end? What does it want? What does it do? Does it think?Biggs: Bigness is bigger than beginnings and endings. Its wants and actions are more than we can comprehend. We're too small to translate the concepts in its thoughts. It's always pushing forward, changing. When we ride it we want to have more unity, to be more than shrunken individuals.Gavin: ...evolution would have to be started by bigness, though, right? Evolution depends on different rates of the survival and reproduction of individuals—or separate groups of individuals. Is evolution against bigness?Biggs: Bigness has a bigger purpose. Through evolution the deaths make future lives better.Gavin: You just said "better". Bigness does have a morality about what's better?Biggs: Better means more variety, more complexity, more range of expression. That kind of better might not be good for us all the time.Gavin: Are we usually on the side of bigness, then?Biggs: Bigness doesn't choose sides. Bigness is bigger than sides. Bigness can't be stopped by anything. For our own benefit, we should listen closer to the lessons of bigness.Gavin: If bigness can work through competition, can't competing be a form of listening closer to the lessons of bigness? What about natural aggressiveness?Biggs: Competition and aggression are for beings that can't plug into bigness directly. Humanity can do that. Bigness develops into self-awareness through tiny pieces of it like us.Gavin: At what moment in its species development did humanity gain that power? Can anyone do it at any time in their life?Biggs: I said it was a feeling. We had the power as soon as we were conscious of what we were truly feeling.Gavin: Is it possible that we could have a feeling, but it's not as meaningful as it appears?Biggs: Bigness is bigger than appearances. Its meaningfulness is what it is, no more, definitely no less.Gavin: With this much vagueness, can't bigness be part of any belief system?Biggs: Bigness is bigger than belief systems. It's wise to recognize that our beliefs about it are never completely right or finished. We know for sure that it's not just this and not just that.Gavin: So...violent, oppressive, fearful beliefs would be...Biggs: In essence, rejections of bigness.Gavin: The good parts are manifestations of bigness, the bad parts aren't?Biggs: Bigness is bigger than narrow notions of good and bad. People revise their rigid rules in better or worse directions depending on the quality of their bond with bigness.Gavin: And the moral dilemmas that people decide differently than one another?Biggs: They decide as they're inside the frame of their lives. Bigness is bigger than anyone's life.Gavin: What would you say if someone else had different ideas than yours about bigness?Biggs: Bigness is bigger than my ideas and their ideas. We can both be partially right, because we're touching different aspects of it.Gavin: ...to recap, bigness in the abstract is everything and nothing, but it can be felt in a dumbfounded state of mind. By feeling it we're supposed to be less self-centered all the time. It's the origin and also the sum total of everything. Calling it "bigness" is too uninspired, though. Would you rather call it "God"?Biggs: Bigness is bigger—Gavin: Yes, of course, forget I asked. What's the point, given that we can't apply it or understand it?Biggs: We can in limited ways. We get perspective. Everyone has a drive to be part of something big. We should confess that we already are. When we do, the tininess of our mishaps, worries, cravings, debates is crystal clear.Gavin: I've got to admit that I've heard of worse beliefs. The problem is that I'd prefer well-supported interpretations and solutions to the stuff you mentioned. It's all tiny, I guess, but if I'm tiny too then it's not tiny to me.

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About Me

I blog as Art Vandalay for the following reasons: 1. less chance of readers prejudging the value of my opinions based on who I am, 2. greater freedom to say whatever I like without fear of it affecting my employment (but I acknowledge that no one can be purely anonymous on the usual Web), 3. I just want to separate my online persona from the "real" me. More explanation.

materialistic naturalism

1. Under the standard of sufficient impartial scrutiny, any allegedly supernatural things don't demonstrably exist. And even if one or more are still assumed to exist, none have demonstrable relevance on how the universe operates. (But these ideas may nevertheless affect culture, behavior, and thought, like many other mistaken ideas have.) 2. Moreover, all existing natural things come from, are composed of, participate in, and will eventually wear down into, material stuff: physical substances acting according to consistent forces.